


dust

by themorninglark



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Future, Gen, M/M, Modern Fantasy, Trains, Underground
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 10:23:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6191350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/themorninglark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Oikawa Tooru, the best train-jumper this side of the Arakawa, brings an unlikely passenger deeper into the tunnels than he's ever been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tothemoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothemoon/gifts).



> this came from a tweet we exchanged about a modern underworld OiKen AU, and promptly spiralled out of my control.  
> happy birthday, the oikawa to my kenma ♥

 

 

 

He was born with a lantern in his hand and the light of a supernova in his eyes.

That's what they _say_ , anyway, of the boy from the zelkova grove, the one with the wind-swept smile, and it's true that he has a way of _wandering off_ , always restless. 

He's often found in the dark, in places he's not supposed to be. When they try to bring him back, he never stays put.

And they'll find him, in tunnels and hollowed-out spaces; and he'll find _himself_ , a persistent, curious hand raised to trace unfamiliar letters, signboards on cracked tile and names that echo like a strange, siren whisper when he forms them under his breath.

The dust never sits still at his feet. 

Neither do the ghost trains, flying by, mysterious.

The days pass, hour after hour, and melt into one, and when his mother tells him, one day, that he'll hurt himself if he keeps _moving_ like this, he looks back over his shoulder. Just for her, he slows down just a little from warp speed. But only, ever only, a little.

 

(No one really remembers what the stars looks like, now, except in artists' impressions.

They still say he has that supernova in his eyes, anyway.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the archway of a long-abandoned station, near the old monument of the Tokyo Skytree, Oikawa Tooru pauses.

"Come on," he calls, a kind of impatience stirring in his stomach, and perhaps, mixed in there, a few butterflies he won't care to admit to. "This train isn't going to ride itself."

He runs a hand over the old concrete. It's cool to the touch. A fine layer of dust, chalk-white, comes away on his palm, and he'll be damned before he wipes _that_ on his new denim jacket, so he blows it off gently, watches it drift away on the still air. 

In the distance, he hears a familiar rumble. They're the only ones here. 

_Small mercies,_ thinks Oikawa. It really wouldn't do, midway through this job, of _all_ jobs, to be called upon to extract a lost rider from the vast and unforgiving bowels of some interchange, somewhere.

He walks towards the platform, and Kenma, the boy from the university, picks up his sneakered feet and follows him.

_Not a boy,_ Oikawa reminds himself, glancing over. He's only one year younger. Yet, there's something about his unassuming demeanour that makes him _feel_ like someone Oikawa should be _responsible_ for, somehow.

It's not untrue. Kenma _is_ paying them an unusually handsome amount for this equally unusually _dangerous_ job, after all, and Iwaizumi has made it clear to Oikawa in no uncertain terms that if he fucks this up and harms the client, his ass is _toast_.

As they approach the edge, Oikawa flings an arm out automatically, and he intones:

"Please stand behind the yellow line."

It's more _habit_ , really, than anything else, when he does this, and there's something in the gesture, in old words; a _sacred prayer_. For safety, he's heard. For familiarity, that ensconcing sense of _ah, yes, things are as they should be_. As much as they _can_ be, _should_ be, anything at all, across a certain threshold.

As Kenma shuffles, warily, to a halt, Oikawa breathes in deep; feels something shift and settle within him.

A faint _mewing_ sound, distinctly out of place, reaches his ears.

Oikawa looks down and wrinkles his nose.

" _Please_ don't tell me we'll have cats following us on this trip," he complains. "I can't guarantee their safety, especially in _Shibuya_ \- "

Kenma gives the stray cat a nudge with his leg. "Go on," he murmurs.

As the train pulls up, the cat's whiskers twitch, and it bolts.

"That cat knows what's good for it," says Oikawa, and shoots Kenma a sharp grin. "Unlike _you_ , it seems, Pudding-chan."

He hops on like he's done a hundred, a thousand times before, grabs a pole by the doorway, finds his footing and whirls back round to Kenma, hand outstretched to help him on.

If Kenma has any reaction to the nickname, he doesn't show it.

He merely lets out a sigh so quiet that even the echo folds in on itself, and when he takes Oikawa's hand, it's with a surprisingly firm grasp.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_"Why do I have to go? I have a date tonight!"_

_"Because you're the best train-jumper we have this side of the Arakawa - "_

_"I prefer Captain, if it's all the same to you, Iwa-chan."_

_"- and this job's dangerous. Also. You don't even drive the damn vehicle. You just press buttons sometimes. What exactly are you captaining?"_

_"...what do you mean, dangerous?"_

_"You know, forget it. I don't think you'd want to go there."_

_"Iwa-chan. Tell me."_

_"No. I've changed my mind. I'm declining the damn job."_

_"Tell me."_

_"No. Even you couldn't handle this one."_

_"Iwa-chan! That's rude!"_

 

 

* * *

 

 

And when Iwaizumi _does_ tell him, Oikawa's not so dumb that he fails to realise he was being _well and truly_ baited all along.

Just dumb enough to say _yes_ anyway.

After all, it's the first time that anyone's asked to ride the subway _there_ , or, rather, _then_ , and Oikawa's burning up with curiosity, as much about the passenger as he is about the destination.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kozume Kenma isn't quite what he'd expected.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Then again, Oikawa knows -

he is _exactly_ what everyone expects of a train-jumper, and there's a showy part of him that revels in that _image_ , polishes it to a sheen so fine that he can see his own reflection in the lilt of his voice, staring back at him.

If he's a mirror, the boy from the university's the proverbial _smoke_ , a kind of still fog that runs deeper than it looks, indistinct shapes forming a question, an observation, then slipping away when no one's watching, and it's _very_ good at knowing when no one's watching.

Today is the day that Oikawa Tooru learns: 

When he meets someone he can't get an immediate read off, it's simply, irresistably, _all_ the more intriguing, and he can feel all his switches in his mind flip on to a ceaseless kind of _high alert_.

 

 

 

 

 

The first twenty minutes of any ride are always the _dullest_. Or maybe he's just telling himself that, this time, knowing - _not_ knowing - what's to come.

Oikawa walks up to the train controls, rests one hand on the charcoal-grey panel and feels the engine hum, electric and quiet, reverberations running all the way up his wrist. 

"Hey," he says to Kenma. "You want to look at this?"

Kenma, looking out the window, turns. 

Oikawa steps back, waves a hand over the levers and buttons. " _This._ It's kind of your thing, isn't it? You can pretend it's a driving game."

Kenma's eyes widen, flick quickly from Oikawa's face to the panel, back down to his shoes.

"Oh, don't look so _surprised_. It's insulting. I could tell right away, you know. You were playing on your console, in the lobby, when we met. And then there's your _posture_ \- "

Oikawa takes a half-stride closer, feels Kenma stiffen, straighten under his sudden touch as he whacks the heel of his palm on his shoulder.

"It's _terrible._ It's the posture of someone who's always hunched over something."

Kenma frowns a little and slides right back into his slouch, hands in his pockets. 

"I don't like driving games," he says.

"Hmmm." Oikawa leans back, taps a finger on his chin and lets an archly knowing smile curve his lips. "I bet you that by the end of today, I'll guess your favourite _genre_."

Kenma looks up, the spark of something dancing in his eyes, on the verge of faint amusement.

_Ah,_ thinks Oikawa, satisfied. _Just as I thought. Games pique his interest._

"You only get three guesses," says Kenma.

Oikawa sniffs haughtily at this show of _disrespect_ , and declares, "I only need one."

Kenma smiles back.

"Okay," he says, and sets down his satchel.

In the sleek, silvery interior of the train, his red hoodie's bright, brighter than the lantern that Oikawa hangs from the wall bracket in the driver's carriage. 

Humming tunelessly to himself, he turns back to the view of the tunnels from the front, scarlet in his thoughts.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"So. The university. What's it like?"

"Normal," says Kenma, without looking up from his phone.

Oikawa crosses his arms, makes a big show of letting out an exaggerated yawn. 

"Bo- _ring_. That's an _autopilot_ sort of answer. What do you reseach?"

"History of technology."

"...I didn't even know that was a _thing_."

Kenma makes no perceptible response to that. Not even a _shrug_ , thinks Oikawa, a little indignant, as he takes another stab at _friendly conversation_. 

"I wanted to go, you know? To university. But then I discovered my _real talents_ lay elsewhere."

He earns a vague, indistinct sort of mumble for his efforts, and tries again, because third time's the charm, surely, and _charm_ , well, that's not something that Oikawa Tooru's ever been short of.

"So what do you think you'll find in Kami-Nerima?"

"Nerima," Kenma says, almost reflexively. 

"Excuse me?"

"That's the old name... Nerima. The overground name."

"Oh," says Oikawa, nonplussed. 

"I don't know."

"Huh. You're risking a lot and paying a lot for something you _don't know_."

Kenma's level gaze flicks up to him, diffident. "I have to use up my research grant."

_Must be nice,_ thinks Oikawa. 

"Arcades, maybe," Kenma adds, unexpectedly; and Oikawa wonders, lets his dreamer's mind get away from him for a few breathless moments, imagines supernova possibilities in machines of old.

_arcades, or what's left of them._

He reins himself in, reminds himself that shooting stars are only myths.

 

 

* * *

 

 

That's the easy part, and so is this:

Hurtling down rusted tracks, he catches sight of what he's been looking for. The telltale sign of an unmistakable ripple, out there in the fabric of the lamp-lit, perfect darkness. It's nothing more than a tiny sort of _wrinkle_ , really, and if he had blinked he'd have missed it, but instinct tells him -

The air coming through the vents feels thinner, here, and his breath comes more shallowly, and something sings in the back of his mind, his heart, and he _knows_.

It's not for nothing that Oikawa Tooru is the best train-jumper this side of the Arakawa.

"Hang on tight," he says as he reaches for the right-side lever, a tingle thrilling up his fingertips.

He casts a quick glance back. Kenma's got his laptop out, and the pale glow of the screen makes his hair gleam, like his eyes, as he uncurls himself slightly.

"Oh. Is it - "

Oikawa nods. "Yeah. It is. If it's your first time… you might want to close your eyes."

Kenma looks mildly offended at the suggestion. He reaches up and closes the lid of his laptop with a deliberate, quiet _click_ , putting it back into his capacious satchel as he gets to his feet.

He doesn't say anything further, merely comes to watch, to stand by Oikawa's side, and rests his palms on the very edge of the control panel; Oikawa, used to answering a thousand and one questions about jumping that are, in truth, more _inane_ than intelligent, thinks: that's new, and thinks, too, that Kenma has very careful hands.

So he keeps his gaze forward, and doesn't speak either. When the train plunges straight into that _ripple_ , when all the air gets sucked out for a moment, and the star-cold chill runs down their spines, Oikawa can't help but notice that Kenma's eyes stay open all the way through. He flinches a little, though. 

His elbow bumps Oikawa's denim jacket, lightly, and secretly, Oikawa is grateful for the human contact, however fleeting; he's done this so many times before on its own that he forgets sometimes how much _warmer_ it is with someone.

And then it's over, just like that. They're through. 

Oikawa lets out a breath, and drops his hand from the emergency brake. 

(It's been a long time since he'd had to use it - but - one never _knew_ \- )

"Welcome to - "

He looks down at his watch, rapidly unwinding, _ticking_.

" - Higashi-ginza, _nine months ago._ Next stop, _Shimbashi_ ," he sings, in his best train-announcer imitation. "Change here for the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, the JR Tokaido Main Line, Yamanote Line, and - oh, just _far too many_ other lines for me to name right now."

Kenma reaches for his pocket, takes out his phone and studies it for a second, something like a struggle flickering over his face, in the tiny, almost imperceptible knit of his brow.

"My phone's not working," he says.

"Well, of _course_ not," says Oikawa. "You're not in _Tokyo City_ any more, Dorothy."

Kenma gives him a brief, contemplative stare as he puts his phone away.

Oikawa shakes his head. "It's nothing. An old movie. About a girl with red shoes."

"Silver," Kenma supplies.

Oikawa's head whips round. "Huh?"

"Silver. They were silver, in the books. They only made them red in the film because the Technicolour popped on screen…"

Kenma's voice trails off, like he's suddenly become conscious of the sound of it, and he grows quiet again, looking at Oikawa and then back out towards the train tracks, that industrial, sparking metal winding ever on, for miles and miles.

"History of technology," he murmurs, gaze shifting.

"Well. You're just full of surprises, Pudding-chan."

Kenma's expression doesn't change. He lets out a low _hmm_ , somewhere between an exhale and a hesitation, and he doesn't explain further, either.

"When I was young - _younger_ \- mind you, I am still the _epitome_ of youth - "

Kenma cracks a tiny smile at that, and Oikawa, too, smiles to see it. He takes a step back from the train console, leans against the wall in the light of the lantern, so that the shadows fall on the other side of him.

"I used to watch that movie, and dream that a whirlwind would come _flying_ through my neighbourhood, and carry me away on _adventures_."

Kenma says nothing. Beneath his keen, golden gaze, Oikawa has the strangest feeling, suddenly, like he's starting to come unravelled; or rather, like he's _choosing_ to unravel himself, because he keeps talking, and the words fall from his careless lips like a sentimental detour. The _scenic_ route.

"Oz looked so magical, and I thought, if it could happen to someone as _ordinary_ as a farm girl, it could happen to _me_ , too, because I - "

He stops, and the frayed, uneven threads of his thought, his self, wind like ribbons and veins on his sleeve for the world to see, weave themselves without words into something that's _aquamarine_ , not quite the promise of blue sky, not quite the subterranean depths of their modern underworld.

_I'm ordinary too,_ he wants to shout, wonders if he can bring himself to declare, instead, _I'm extraordinary_ , and ends up saying nothing at all.

"But in the end," Kenma murmurs, so soft that it seeps right into Oikawa's skin, "Dorothy just wanted to go home."

A bend in the darkness, up ahead, catches Oikawa's eye.

"We get off here," he says, and turns on his heel to head for the door.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Higashi-ginza, nine months ago -_

Oikawa closes his eyes, and recalls a day of dust.

He had been tracing his footsteps, down an unexplored track; he had _sneezed_ in a decidedly undignified fashion and wiped his eyes, and then he had got some kind of brick-red mineral in them, something he picked up off the crumbling walls of another tunnel, and he'd had to blink it away so quickly he looked like he was crying.

He'd walked on, and mapped it all out in his head as he continued. Another mile, another oncoming train; he'd hopped onboard, filled with faint hope, only to find that it went nowhere at all and looped round again to where he started.

_Tooru, it's not safe in the tunnels -_

And Oikawa Tooru, the boy who always wanted _more_ , had never listened to warnings.

He's not about to start, now.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Next stop, Shimbashi._

He's watchful, for phantoms, criss-crossed timelines and train lines, in a way he isn't when it's just _him_ , and he's acutely aware of it, because Iwaizumi always tells him off for being so careful with others and so _damned reckless_ when it comes to himself.

("You act like _your_ own life matters less than everyone else's, you dumb asshole," he'd said, and Oikawa had had nothing to say to that, and he had made his winning smile his _mea culpa_.)

He reaches out, then thinks better of it and pauses first.

"I'm going to hold your hand. Don't panic. It's just - these interchanges can be really - well, bad. I need to make sure you don't _disappear_ , or Iwa-chan will actually _kill_ me. Okay?"

"Okay," says Kenma, adjusting his satchel, and Oikawa takes his hand.

The warmth of the touch courses through him again, a steady kind of hearth-flame.

Together, they make their way up an escalator. It's stopped running, of course - hasn't run for years and years and decades - and like the rest of Shimbashi station, it's eroded into a stately shell, filled with echoes and sand and the remains of a past in the sunlight, something now that's more legend than history.

There are empty spaces that used to be shopfronts, and there are whispers from the shadows.

Kenma's ears prick. His footsteps slow. 

"Don't listen to them," Oikawa says, and tugs at Kenma, growing ever more insistent. "We have a train to catch."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Up, up, they go, until they could _reach_ out, almost, touch that high ceiling of concrete and rock, and beyond that, the fabled _open air_. 

Oikawa keeps his gaze relentlessly forward, his eyes peeled. 

"There," Kenma says, softly. 

Oikawa blinks. Sure enough - right in front of them, winking round a corner -

"How did you see that?" he asks, more than just a little annoyed, and, grudgingly, with a tinge of admiration. 

"I watched you," says Kenma. 

If not for the hand in his, Oikawa thinks, he'd feel something of a chill; he's thoroughly unused to having all his trade secrets so effortlessly exposed. 

"That's _unfair_ ," he counters, petulant. 

Kenma studies him. "Okay. I won't do it anymore."

"No - I mean, you _should_ , it's good you spotted _this_ \- "

For the first time, with someone else's hand in his, he heads _deliberately_ into the ripple, and emerges on the other side of another kind of boundary.

" - but _really_ , it's not fair how quickly you catch on."

Oikawa squeezes Kenma's hand like a reprimand, clicking his tongue.

"Um," says Kenma, bemused. "All right."

"Don't go telling Iwa-chan, or I'll be out of a job."

"I don't want to do this as a job. It seems tiring."

"It _is_. Terribly tiring."

Oikawa looks down at his watch again, and waits for the second hand to settle before speeding up his pace. They fly up another set of stairs, or rather, _Oikawa_ flies; Kenma, in his wake, gives off the feeling of just being _there_ , somehow, rather than any movement at all.

" _Twenty months._ We're getting there, Pudding-chan, we're getting there."

They board their next train, and Oikawa sets his course for the great beyond.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Twenty months_ turns into _twenty-four_ , two years, and three, and as the ceilings grow lower, the concrete more cracked, Oikawa dares to crank down a window and stick his head out.

" _HELLO!_ " he shouts at the top of his lungs.

_hello, hello,_ and the past bounces back to him off the faded grey walls, down the narrow passageway; he tosses his head and laughs, because he has never been so deep, so _far back_ , and his heart is racing faster than the train can keep up.

"Try it," he calls to Kenma. "You'll never get a chance like this again."

Kenma looks deeply sceptical. Gingerly, he stands up on his seat anyway, cracks open the top of a window, one tiny inch, and says, _hello._

It's barely more than a whisper, but Oikawa hears it peal through the tunnel like a bell, bright and clear as the tiny smile on Kenma's face.

"I guess this is cool," Kenma admits.

Oikawa turns to face him, solemn.

"I have a confession to make. Beyond _five years_ , I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. We could be on our way to an irreversible time loop. We could be on our way to - to - _change the world_."

"I think that's kind of amazing," Kenma remarks, with an infuriating, infinite equanimity, "for ordinary people, like us…"

And Oikawa feels himself falter, come a little bit more undone, as _ordinary_ echoes gentle in his head, and he nearly misses their next stop: Shibuya.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Perhaps it would have been better, if he'd missed it. Perhaps, then, he could have botched the job, but got them back safely anyway, collected half-payment (still, by all accounts, a generous sum), and stayed safely in the light of his lantern, a merry, flickering glow.

Because _Shibuya_ , of the _scramble_ and the crossings, faded neon lights and the butterfly dreams of thousands, is where it all starts slipping out of his hands -

"Shibuya," Iwaizumi had said to him, a warning in his voice, and Oikawa, heedless, had waved him off in a dismissive fashion and told him to _stop fussing so much_.

But Oikawa Tooru, the best train-jumper this side of the Arakawa, does not miss their stop, and as he makes his winding, mazy way through dust and corridors, counts off the platforms, the stopped clocks and the broken glass, now dull with years, he feels a strange kind of _tug_ towards the remnants of the Yamanote, and in the absence of any better guide, he lets his gut lead the way.

Kenma, hand in his, hesitates.

Oikawa chooses not to notice, because _when have his instincts led him wrong_ , ever?

 

 

* * *

 

 

(Often enough, as it turns out, or just at _fateful_ moments, and Oikawa will do his best to _shush_ that voice in the back of his mind as they get on another train, trip back from _seven_ to _ten_ years, to _twelve_ , and further, still.

The second hand on his watch jerks, erratic.

His restless fingers run over the control panel, and they're sweating, shaking more than he'll ever let on. If he isn't careful, he'll start running his mouth off in a second - )

 

 

 

 

 

"Where is that light coming from?"

Oikawa, one hand pressed to a squeaky-clean windowpane, jumps. Kenma's been so quiet for so long that his voice sounds unnaturally loud in the wind, the constant _whoosh, whoosh_ that fills the tunnel.

He turns to look down at the seat behind him. Kenma's got his knees drawn up to his chest now, hugging them close. He hasn't moved. He's not the most imposing of figures, when he's standing; here, sitting curled up like this, he looks even smaller.

But his gaze is alert, and he's looking out, somewhere into the cavernous dark beyond Oikawa's fingertips and the infinite spaces in between, and the specks of light that dot the roof of their universe.

" _Glow worms_ ," says Oikawa.

"Glow worms," Kenma repeats, like he's trying out the sound of the word.

Oikawa stretches out his arms, expansive, indulgent. 

"Millions and _millions_ of them, Pudding-chan. The world is _huge_. Did you know that? I bet you didn't know that."

"I didn't know that," Kenma echoes.

"You're just saying that to shut me up," says Oikawa, whirling round, as he jabs an accusing finger in Kenma's direction.

The ghost of a smile crosses Kenma's face, bright as his eyes. He goes silent, contemplative for a moment, before he speaks again.

"Are we lost?"

Oikawa, used to sugarcoated words and second-guessing, accustomed, as he is, to the subtle and finely worded lines of a particular kind of sweet duplicity, finds himself seeking out the doublespeak in Kenma's question; to no avail.

Kenma tilts his head slightly, looks at Oikawa without any expectation at all. Like it really _doesn't_ matter, even if they _are_ lost.

It's a strange sensation.

"Yeah," Oikawa admits, and his honesty startles even himself.

 

 

* * *

 

 

And it's somewhere on the boundaries, right before they're _projected_ to reach Kami-Nerima that Oikawa swallows twinges of regret, bitter, dark like coffee at the back of his throat.

(He doesn't even _like_ coffee. It's not the taste of it that bothers him, it's the _caffeine_ , and what it does to his nerves, the chandelier tripwire of them that jangles constantly.) 

Then it hits in waves, and he thinks about slippery slopes and, _oh,_ the date he could be on right now, though Kenma isn't the most disagreeable company, and Oikawa's even being paid for it.

All in all, perhaps, a different sort of upside-down victory.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The train pulls to a halt at another ghost-coloured station, and when the doors slide open, Oikawa's staggered, for a moment, by the _smell_ in the air -

Dust assaults him, like so much of the underground, but there's also something that _draws_ him, like breadcrumbs, the faintest tinge of lavender and zelkova, like in the wild garden of his youth, and he doesn't walk so much as _trip_ over himself, in something of a frantic daze, to disembark.

"Here," he says to Kenma. "Let's get off here."

Kenma, inscrutable, shoulders his satchel.

To Oikawa's surprise, _he_ reaches out first, slips his smaller hand into his, and he leads, cautiously, as Oikawa blinks and stirs himself from this strange reverie.

"What station is this?" Kenma asks quietly. "When are we?"

"I don't know. I've never been here before. Also, my watch is busted," Oikawa admits. He laughs, helpless; tries to square his shoulders, ends up giving Kenma a kind of half-smile because those watchful golden eyes never leave him, and they're piercing right _through_ , so, in truth, he has nowhere to hide, and it's kind of _liberating_ , really.

"I don't know," he says again. "I just - have a feeling."

"Okay," says Kenma, considered, thoughtful.

Oikawa follows the scent of zelkova in the cave-dark damp, looking for light; _drip, drip,_ the water falls, and Oikawa feels the cool air circle round his face.

"The road is slippery. Stay out of the shadows," he reminds Kenma.

With the glow worms overhead, and the lantern in his hand, still burning, they pick their way through an overgrown path, covered with weeds and moss and moisture, and Oikawa, who's always been tall for the caverns, has to duck a little in some of the shorter corridors.

He feels the tremor in Kenma's grip, knows the creeping chill is getting to him too.

Oikawa, in a rare show of self-restraint, keeps to his words to himself.

It's getting _louder_ , the _silence_ , the reminiscence -

And there are no more tiles on the walls, nothing but rough-hewn rock, not even columns, as they emerge from a particularly dank hole into a wide-open space, as sudden as it is spectacular.

The _vastness_ of it is what strikes Oikawa first. He could fit an entire orchestra, an entire _symphony_ in here. Then a dissonant note sounds in his mind, and he looks down.

The remains of _Aoba-jou_ lie at his feet, cracked marble and stone, and Oikawa drops his lantern.

He runs.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_"Tooru, it's not safe in the tunnels - "_

_well, no one ever said it was safe out of them either, did they?_

_did they?_

 

 

* * *

 

 

And he's halfway down another train track, _another train of thought_ , and all the lines are a fevered mess in the map of his mind; it's only the _cold_ , the shiver up his spine and the emptiness in his palm and the realisation that Kenma isn't holding his hand anymore -

_ha,_ and he's not laughing _with_ but _at_ himself, a tired joke. _when did it become him holding my hand, and not me holding his?_

He leans back into the hollowed-out curve of a tunnel wall, hugs himself in search of scant warmth, and waits for the approaching footsteps to catch up with him.

The light scrape of pebbles on metal, on old, chipped wood, rings in his ears with a harsh familiarity.

"Fancy _that_ ," Oikawa says, words coming out like a whip-cord at his throat, "you move a lot faster than you look, Pudding-chan."

Kenma's voice is measured. He sounds a lot less breathless than Oikawa does.

"When I have to," he says, and pauses, an arm's length away. "Are you okay."

" _Grand_. Just grand."

"Oikawa," Kenma starts, then pauses, " _Tooru_ \- "

"It's not okay. I'm not okay. I was supposed to take you to Kami-Nerima. _Nerima_ , not - "

_this,_ he hesitates to say. _here._

_miyagi-ken,_ or what it used to be, but not just _any_ Miyagi, _Oikawa Tooru's_ Miyagi, _twenty-five years ago_ , with the zelkova grove and the histories ingrained into the tips of his fingers, the soles of his feet. The supernova light in his eyes, that fizzled out into dying sparks, in the end.

Oikawa lets his arms fall, runs a harried hand through his hair. "I'm sorry. That was. Awfully _irresponsible_ of me, to leave you alone."

"I'm fine on my own," Kenma murmurs.

"Are you? I guess you are. But please don't tell Iwa-chan."

Kenma nods. He doesn't ask any questions.

Carefully, he joins Oikawa by the recess, rests his weight against a lone vine of some sort, running up the walls.

Oikawa lets out a long, shuddering breath.

"I grew up there," he says. "In the shadow of Aoba-jou. Right outside the castle. To the west."

Kenma's gaze flickers, quick and hesitant, over to him, back out across the tracks.

"It was _boring_. I couldn't wait to leave, and so - "

Oikawa flings an arm out dramatically, gestures to the length and breadth of the darkness, the tunnels, neverending. Their underworld. Their _world._

"I spent all my time exploring, when I was a kid, and I dreamt. Oh, I dreamt _big_."

Kenma stirs, at his side. "About going to the university."

"Yeah. They told me I was chasing daydreams. Chasing the _sky_ , you know, because no one from my family - from my neighbourhood - had ever gone anywhere. And they were right."

The taste in his mouth is bitter, and Oikawa laughs, his throat dry.

"I wasn't a genius. I'm still not, I guess."

"You don't have to be. I'm not, either," says Kenma, and somehow -

When others say it, it's always got something of the flavour of a _humblebrag_ , sweet like spun sugar as it melts into nothing at all; from Kenma, it sounds like - truth.

"Well, I left," Oikawa says, and _his_ truth is blunt, _unrefined_. Perhaps, that's all he really has to offer after all, beneath the careless gestures, his reckless ways.

"I walked down a tunnel one day, and told my parents, and my nephew, that I'd be back when I made it."

"Have you gone back, then?" Kenma asks.

Oikawa shrugs. "Do you think I've made it?"

"I don't know," says Kenma, with a tiny shrug. "That depends on where you wanted to go."

Oikawa digs his heel into the soft rock, looks down at the dust at his feet, staying still, for once, in the wake of his whirlwind.

"I'm still just a train-jumper," he mutters.

"The best train-jumper this side of the Arakawa," Kenma echoes, and Oikawa, in spite of himself, smiles; it's not entirely happy. His lip twists, beautiful and double-edged.

"I got us lost. I don't _deserve_ that title."

Kenma shakes his head, says, simply: "I don't think we're lost. I think you ended up exactly where you needed to go, Tooru."

Oikawa swallows, stricken.

Kenma reaches for his hand.

"It's okay," he says, and right there and then, as another ripple in time comes for them, Oikawa dares to believe in his _extra-ordinariness_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Together, they break every rule in the book. Oikawa's giddy. Kenma appears wholly unperturbed.

They look for shadows, and step into their shade, into the creeping chill; phantom voices ring out, and Oikawa has to clap his hands over his ears, only to feel Kenma's patient fingers peeling them away, gently.

They draw closer, ever closer, to the heart of it all, the lantern that hangs from a crumbling wall, burning still. Oikawa hears - _sees_ -

His ghost-self, his _past-self_ , trying to reach for it, and the memory's fresh in his mind all over again. He's four, nearly five years old, minutes away from setting foot into his first tunnel. Watching a train go by, carrying with it his future.

He hears his mother call to him, _Tooru, Tooru_ , and his own high-pitched lilt, _coming!_ , except he doesn't, not right away. He'll steal the light and disappear into the darkness.

Oikawa Tooru, _twentysomething_ years later, watches the scene fade, _blurry_ , as Kenma tugs him out of the shadow.

Dust has made him cry before. He wears these tears like a different kind of regalia.

 

 

 

 

 

" _Right._ Next stop, Kami-Nerima, sorry about the detour - "

"Not today," Kenma interrupts, and Oikawa's startled into bright insensibility.

"Huh? But - "

"Next time," says Kenma. "I'm tired."

He smiles at Oikawa, quiet and fleeting; doesn't add, _so are you_ , and as they step out into the relative safety of another platform, he comes to a stop behind the yellow line of his own accord, loosens his grip but doesn't let go of Oikawa's hand.

Out of the chill, they're slowly warming up.

"Hmmph," says Oikawa, with a small, flighty toss of his head. "Fine. I'll even do it at no extra charge. How about that? It's your lucky day."

" _Technically_ ," Kenma points out, "the original job's still unfinished…"

"Oh, _technicalities_."

They get on the next train. As Oikawa makes his way through the carriages, heading for the front, he turns to shoot Kenma an appraising glance, and delivers his verdict.

" _RPGs._ "

Kenma blinks.

"That's your favourite type of game. Isn't it?"

"Hmmm," says Kenma, noncommittal, smiling.

Oikawa takes a deep breath and plunges on.

"I know it is. The way you get _under my skin_ , it's like, I don't know - like you're building a little bit of your _self_ around everyone you meet, and then you take in part of _them_ , too, and I feel like we kind of - understand each other - or something."

_Well done, Tooru,_ he congratulates himself. _That was a spectacularly lame finish._

The floor beneath their feet rumbles, stirs to life as the train pulls out of the platform.

"So," Oikawa says, rallying. "Where shall we go, now?"

Kenma, hands on the ledge, leans forward and murmurs out of the window, into the dark. _till next time._

The train speeds on, leaving the glow worms and the past behind.

"How about home?" Kenma says.

And Oikawa smiles, genuine.

"Okay," he nods, and sets his course for tomorrow, one step at a time.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  **some geographical notes**  
>  "Aoba Johsai" = "West of Aoba-Jou", [Aoba-Jou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aoba_Castle) being a castle in Sendai. It was destroyed by WWII bombing, but has been partially rebuilt.  
> The Arakawa is one of Tokyo's principal rivers.  
> Kami-Nerima is an old name for one of the areas that is now incorporated into modern-day Nerima.


End file.
